PadLock resources

Why hardware encryption is better than software encryption

There are many software applications that provide similar tools to the VIA PadLock Security Engine. So what makes VIA PadLock better?

One of the main reasons is that the VIA PadLock Security Engine is housed in its own section within the processor. This means that hackers who could have used techniques to gain access to the valuable data during the encryption process find it difficult if VIA PadLock is used.

The VIA PadLock Security Engine also performs the encryption and decryption calculations at many times the speed than is possible in software implementations of the same techniques. This is achieved through the offset of computations to VIA PadLock, which through the power of the world's fastest security engine performs the computations at speeds faster than real-time. In fact, not only can VIA PadLock do them faster, but by offsetting the calculations, it frees up the processor to do the job the user wants it to do, such as playing a movie smoothly.

The quality of the keys used to secure data and the subsequent strength of encryption is far superior to software based processes. Key generation using the VIA PadLock Security Engine allows developers to capture true randomness experienced only in the sub-atomic world and apply it to the generation of a truly random key. This thwarts hackers who rely on the statistical repeatability experienced in software random number generation and in the subsequent key generation to break secure code.

These key differences in the implementation of hardware based encryption versus software based encryption have a substantial impact on an applications ability to secure data quickly and efficiently.

Below provides a visual demonstration of these key differences:

AES Encryption Without VIA PadLock

Without the VIA PadLock Security Engine, unencrypted data causes bottlenecks when being processed into secure data. This increases significantly the load on the processor and reduces the potential throughput of the encrypted text.

AES Encryption with VIA PadLock

In contrast, with the VIA PadLock Security Engine, unencrypted text can be converted to secure data in real-time without bottlenecking system resources.